


Billy (kinda) Adopts a Wendigo

by controlledDestiny



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, and it's name is wendi because im an uncreative lil shit, no beta we die like men, there's a wendigo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-06-25 09:02:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15637512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/controlledDestiny/pseuds/controlledDestiny
Summary: I had a weird-ass dream about Billy and Wendigos.And then this happened.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a weird-ass dream about Billy and Wendigos.  
> And then this happened.

The drive from Cali to Indiana is supposed to take about two days. A little over halfway there the adults decide to stop at Susan's sister's place to eat and sleep.

She lives in Missouri, in a cabin surrounded by a small patch of forest. And _maybe_ Billy would be able to appreciate the scenery if Neil wasn't with them. But he is, so Billy doesn't. The whole thing is actually pretty tense, like the old bastard thinks Billy might let slip how it usually goes at home. And honestly, Susan's sister is way too fucking nice to him. That's probably part of why Billy keeps catching his dad grinding his teeth.

They figure out sleeping arrangements, then sit down for dinner.

When everyone is done eating and beginning to relax, Billy takes a walk. There's a good amount of privacy in the woods around the cabin. Lots of trees and bushes to hide him and his bad habits. Cigarettes and joints, his two favourite things next to booze and sex.

Maybe it would've been better if he had some alcohol on him tonight, just so he could deal with the shit he starts seeing in the trees.

At first he thinks it's just a pair branches he hadn't noticed before, but then they move away from the bush a little, and that's when he can tell they're  _antlers_. Deer antlers. When they rise up a little more he can see the sleek white of a deer's skull attached to the bottom of them. The whole (dead) animal's head is poking out of the foliage and just  _staring at him_.

Then it tilts it's head to the side and Billy nearly shrieks.

Scratch that. Billy's a man and men don't shriek, so he definitely  _does not_  shriek.

It tilts it's head the other way and moves forward on legs Billy can't see.

He's pretty sure he couldn't right now move even if someone pushed him.

The bushes rustle behind him. He jumps almost five feet in the air, it startles him so bad.

It's Susan's Too-Nice sister.

(He thinks her name is Mary, but he's not sure. He wasn't really listening during introductions.)

"Oh, you've met Wendi!"

"What the fu-"

"It's harmless, really." She interrupts. "But I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this. Suzy already thinks I'm batty 'cause of the 'Hippy Stuff'. I don't need her signing me up for a vacation to the nut house any time soon."

He nods, feeling a little dumb for just staring at her.

He look at the thing in the bushes and asks in a quiet voice, "What the hell is it?"

She purses her lips. "I'm not quite sure, but I  _think_  it might be a Wendigo."

Billy's not stupid. He reads books. And sometimes those books are about monsters and legends and folklore. He  _knows_  what a Wendigo is, which means he knows what they can do and what they  _eat_.

"And you just, what, come out here and talk to it?"

"I also feed it"

"But they eat  _people_." He mutters. Then, when the realization hits him, "Oh, that is so fu-"

"I don't bring it  _people_." She says with a little indignant snort. Billy's starting to think the crazy broad keeps cutting him off just to save herself from a few  _fucks_  and  _shits_. She gestures at the thing with one hand, the other resting on her hip. "Wendi, for some odd reason, likes when I bring it things like steak and ribs. Sometimes stews with a little extra meat." She ends in a gentle cooing voice directed at 'Wendi', and the fucker makes a sort of rumbling/purring noise.

"I tried raw meat the first time, but it just stared at me like I was stupid."

"And it... it's  _nice_?"

God, he sounds so fucking stupid...

"Wendi's not exactly  _affectionate. B_ ut it purrs when it's happy. And roars when it's angry, which isn't very often. When nobody's around it sometimes curls up next to me on the porch while I read a book or play some music."

"Like a dog?"

"Exactly."

"A dog that can rip people apart."

"But it  _won't_. Not me, anyway. It  _likes_  me. Watch."

A hand comes out from behind her back to show off a container of leftovers from dinner. She opens it up and places it on the ground, then pushes it forward. Not far enough to reach the bushes, though, just enough that the thing would have to take a step or two out of the bushes to reach it. It's almost like the lady  _wants_  the fucker to come out of it's hiding spot or something.

Which  _happens._

And that just makes it a lot worse, because _holy shit_  that thing is freaky on so many fucking levels!

It's body is thin, almost skeletal, and covered in fur in most places. Some of the fur is blood-soaked, other patches have started to fall off because it's  _rotting_. It's got sharp, long-as-fuck claws and freaky backwards-bending legs. And to make it all even worse, Wendi is probably close to seven or more feet tall.

The thing crouches and scoops up the container, tilting it's head and staring at her for a second. After it's taken it's time checking her out, it bows down a bit. That's when she reaches out to smooth her hand over the spot between where it's antlers meet it's head.

"Now you try."

Before he can protest she's got her hand around his wrist, pulling him forward to do what she just did. The monster doesn't seem to give a shit, thankfully. It doesn't growl or even flinch, just waits until they're done feeling up it's skull.

(Billy can feel it vibrating under his fingers and he has a small internal crisis about it.)

After about thirty seconds of all  _that_  (rubbing the bare skull of a fucking monster) he takes his hand back and just stares at the creepy thing crouched down in front of him. Then it backs up slowly and fucks off into the woods again when it decides it's done being some kind of freaky circus animal.

Mary leads Billy back to the house once it's out of sight.

"Wendi likes us, so we're safe."

She opens the patio door and steps in. Billy follows a few seconds later, after he looks out at the forest one last time for the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcannon Billy Hargrove is only scared of his dad.
> 
> He's been trained since he was a kid to think his dad is the scariest motherfucker in the world. Like, if you put Pennywise in front of Billy, it would turn into his dad and back him into a corner like we've seen the real Neil do. 
> 
> That's what I think, anyway.
> 
> So, lets say Billy sees a monster. A Demodog or Demogorgon. He's not guna freak out. He's guna pick up the nearest blunt object and beat that shit to death because it wants to eat him.
> 
> But then, lets say he's face-to-face with something like a Wendigo. If it's calm and does nothing, he does the same. If it comes to him like a fucking cat, he's guna pet that shit and make it his. This is all after he has a small internal crisis about the Wendigo existing in the first fuckin' place though.
> 
> So... that's what my weird dream gave me.


	2. Chapter 2

Wendi stalks deep into the woods until it finds it's home. A cave dug into the side of a tiny cliff, about five feet tall and hidden well behind small fallen trees and various types of moss/ground plants. It barely fits inside the cave, but manages to squeeze itself inside just enough to place the plastic container of food at the feet of the other being that lives there.

She smiles at it, wiping the blood from under her nose away with the sleeve of her stolen hoodie.

The entirety of the meal goes to the thin human girl. Wendi doesn't need it. Never has, never will.

Because Wendi isn't alive.

Wendi is an amalgamation of dead things. Bones and skin and fur and limbs from any animal carcass the girl could find while wandering through the forest. And it moves only because she wills it to. Wendi is a puppet and a protector. It scares off the real monsters but lures in the gentle people that would rather tame it than hurt it.

As she eats (or rather: scarfs down the food) she thinks back to what she saw through her Creation's eyes.

Bright hair like that is new. It had the same colour as dead grass, or maybe the fancy metal people make jewelry out of. It's called 'gold', right? Not even  _once_  in her life has she seen anyone, man or woman, with hair like that. Plus, the few men she's seen in person usually don't keep it longer than the tops of their ears.

It was strange to see, but also pretty. Not to mention, suddenly seeing someone like  _him_ with the woman who feeds Wendi (feeds  _her_ ) was a bit of a shock. The kind older woman doesn't have visitors aside from Wendi and maybe some family members throughout the year. Usually only during what they refer to as a 'holiday'.

(She still doesn't know what a 'holiday' is...)

But he was (mostly) calm and didn't react too badly to petting her Puppet. He seemed a little hesitant at first, but otherwise okay with what he was seeing.

She wants to watch him a little longer. Him and the other people he came here with.

She sends Wendi out so she can.


	3. Chapter 3

The plastic container from the night before is sitting on the porch the next morning. Billy's the one to find it, having stepped out for a morning smoke. He takes it inside and places it next to the sink. Doesn't notice the very  _human_ fingerprints left on the sides of it.

An hour later everyone gets an earful of Neil's angry yelling. For once, focused on his car instead f his son.

Turns out, all their tires have been slashed. Not just on the family car, but on his precious Baby too. The Camaro's tires are  _shredded_. Billy nearly has a fucking conniption right then and there because that.

He's at least thankful that Neil can't blame him for the family car's tires if his own are slashed too. The crazy bastard knows damn well that Billy treats his car better than he'll treat any living thing, ever, even himself.

He jumps when Mary comes up behind him without making a sound and whispers, "Don't be angry."

He whips around to face her. "You do this?"

She smiles and shakes her head. "Wendi."

"Christ on the frickin' cross." Since last night he's been curbing his use of the worst curse words he knows. Just so the monster-loving weirdo wouldn't interrupt him anymore when they talked.

Which happened to be quite a bit. Neither of them could sleep last night and they ended up having some very long (and very awkwardly stilted) conversations.

"I think it wants you to stay a while longer. It likes ya, kid. Doesn't want you to go yet."

He rolls his eyes and drawls a sarcastic, " _Great_."

"Maybe I should introduce Max, too"

"She'd tell Susan  _all_  about it, even if you told her not to."  _Trust me, I know from experience,_ he doesn't say. "Not a good idea."

"Noted." She says with a disappointed pout, then turns and walks back into the house.

The Wendigo is out there in the bushes.

Billy can feel it staring at him.

They have a few hours before someone can come by with eight spare tires. Then another couple hours between that and putting them on both cars before they can start heading for Indiana again. This all means he has time to kill.

And there's some shit he needs to say to a certain monster in the woods.

He walks towards the edge of the trees and watches the big-ass shadow move further back. He pushes through the bushes and wanders into the area where he'd been face-to-face with the Wendigo last night. The seven foot tall monster is crouched where it'd been then. Same position and everything.

It tilts it's head to the left and stares at Billy as he gears up to ream it out for touching his fucking car.

"You can't- You can't just fuckin'  _slash_  someone's tires so they have to stick around!" He shouts, wondering only for a second if someone heard him back at the house. He cringes, and after a couple seconds of silence he continues. "It's... it's not okay,  _okay_? I have to pay for new tires now, which is real fuckin' expensive by the way, and then I have to do all the work to get the new ones on there!"

It tilts it's head to the other side.

"Do you even understand what I'm telling you?!"

It nods.

It fucking  _nods_.

"Okay... Okay, so you get that what you did was bad, right?"

It nods again.

"Good. Don't do it again."

It nods for the third time, and Billy swears the thing fucking purrs at him. The sound might be cute if it came from literally  _anything_   _else_ , but it came from a nightmare's nightmare, so it's really  _not_.

Billy guesses it's some sort of apology when the giant asshole crawls over on all fours and circles his legs, then lays down in a circle around his feet. Almost like it's a majorly over-sized cat. It makes that rumbling/purr noise again, sort of like a happy growl, and then  _actually_  growls when he tries to step out of the circle of it's body. He steps away anyway, sure as shit that it wont hurt him if it wanted him to stay another couple hours.

It shuts right up when he drops down next to it in the dirt.

He gives himself the time-frame of two cigarettes with a little break between them to just sit with Wendi and chill. Because the freaky fucker isn't so freaky when it's calm and not staring at him, and he needs a break from the chaos that's unfolding back at the house.

"I ain't guna pet you, y'know." He tells it as he lights up a smoke. "That was a one-time deal, got it?"

It huffs, dropping it's head back into it's folded arms. That seems like the closest to a 'yes' he'll get from it right now, so he takes it that way. It doesn't turn to face away from him the entire time they sit there, but that's only creepy if he stares back at it, which he very pointedly  _doesn't_.

 


	4. Chapter 4

This time she comes out of her hidey-hole instead of watching through her Creation's empty eye sockets. It feels like a more personal 'goodbye' if she's standing off to the side, hidden by the forest's edge, when the four new faces leave.

She doesn't actually say it, doesn't show herself, doesn't send her puppet out. She just stands there in the dark of the tree's shadows and  _thinks_  it, hoping the one with the weird hair can pick up on it.

It's what she does. Getting in people's heads, that is. That, and the puppets. Mostly the puppets, actually. But she's shown that she can do all the fancy telepathy stuff with other humans, too, so she tries to do it now.

Doesn't look like it worked.

She shrugs and thinks,  _o_ _h well._

Because she doesn't _need_ humans. Humans disappoint and hurt and trick whenever they get the chance. They're horrible things, their personalities making them look more like Wendi than people in her eyes.

Despite those thoughts she decides she wants to meet face-to-face with the woman named Mary. It takes her a whole month to work up the courage, but she does it. And she blames all of it on the appearance of that family. Tells herself the sudden influx of other humans and her own interest in the one her age are the reasons she wants to reveal herself to the older woman.

(She doesn't regret it like she thought she would.)

The year or so she's been receiving food from the kind woman is more than enough to help convince her that things will go smoothly. That Mary  _won't_  call the men in white coats. That they won't simply track her down. That she can finally relax and feel safe.

And she's right, which may be part of what restores some of the girl's faith in her own species.


	5. Chapter 5

"You should get out sometimes."

The statement is made easily, Mary having had a bit of liquid courage. She always finds it harder to talk to her guest when she's painfully sober and so she pulls out a bottle of wine and has a couple glasses of wine, three at most, and goes over the words in her head multiple times before she even dreams of voicing them.

"You... want me to leave?"

A simple question, asked with as few words as possible despite the fact that the girl (they still haven't agreed on a name for her, and Mary refuses to call her by the number inked into her thin wrist, so for now she is simply 'the girl') knows how to properly put a sentence together. She seems to like having a shorter verbal vocabulary than mental, for some reason the older woman can't wrap her head around.

The tone she uses when she asks is almost heartbreaking.

"No, no. I would be more than happy to have you stay with me forever." Mary quickly amends, "I just think going from one cage to another to  _another_  isn't very healthy. You were stuck somewhere you wont tell me about, then you left and chose to hide away in a cave, and now you won't leave the house or the yard." She heaves a sigh, long-suffering, exhausted. "You need to get out there and see the world."

" _They_ will find me."

"Well, maybe we can change up your hair? And I could show you how to use make-up? That'll make you look different enough! Oh, and a sweater with a hood is always great for hiding your face in public."

"Easy?"

" _Fairly_ , yes. But you should probably leave Wendi behind." The girl's face drops. The amalgamation of dead things and foliage is her friend and protector. Of course she wouldn't want to abandon it. She covers the girl's hand with her own to comfort her. "It would bring to much attention to you, and you can't take it on the main roads 'cause it'll scare people."

She nods, face still sour. Poor girl looks like a little kid who's just been told Christmas  _and_  her birthday aren't happening. Not that she actually knows what her birthday is, or what Christmas is, but still... it's the same face.

"I'm sorry. I know Wendi makes you feel safe, but not taking it with you would be even safer."

She nods again, "Wendi is... 'strange'."

"Mhmm."

"Like  _me_."

"Well...  _y_ _eah,_ " Mary drags out both syllables separately, shrugging lazily, "But  _you_  are a kind of 'strange' that you can hide."

She nods again.

"Let's you and me go out and get some hair dye, you can pick the colour, and then I'll cut it for you. After that I'll teach you all about the magic of  _cosmetics_." She makes a grand gesture, but the girl looks unimpressed. Make-up probably doesn't seem very magical when compared to making a Golem out of dead animals. "They can give you a whole new face.  _Powdered lies_ , one of my old boyfriends called it."

"Lying is  _bad_."

Ah, what a good girl, knowing her manners and all that.

"Yes, it can be. But make-up is a good lie because it doesn't hurt anyone."

"There are... good lies?"

"Yep."

Another of those signature singular nods.

Mary decides she should work on the girl's social skills as well before she goes  _anywhere_.

 


	6. Chapter 6

She travels through the woods in the shadow of her new puppet, made from dead things and greenery she found when she came here. A new puppet in every small town's forest, left to sit at the edge of the trees every time she moved on. Probably to be found and gawked at by the few others who go wandering around those places.

She misses each of them like an amputated limb.

Which they kind of were, considering she could see through their eyes and control their bodies.

She'd left the first one with Mary. She called it 'abstract lawn art' and said her friends would love it as much as she does. That made her feel a little better about abandoning the only thing that had ever been strictly  _hers_  in her life. Especially when Mary explained how she would make it even more beautiful with flowers that climb and something called ivy.

One day, she plans on going back to see it.

The second one, which was made a couple towns away from Mary's, was very different from the first. Smaller, more bones, moved faster and took less of her energy to look control. It barely reached her own shoulder in height, and it's head wasn't as long as the first's. Looked a lot like a cat's skull, from what she'd seen of cats with Mary, who fed the strays in her area.

She left that one high up in a tree. Forced it to climb up up  _up_ , then cut the connection and walked away.

The third one had been the biggest. Made with what she thinks was a bear skull, after a long inner debate about whether to use the  _it_ , or the human skull she'd found next to it. But, in the end, she figured the bear skull would attract less attention from the authorities when someone eventually found it, so bear it was.

Poor bear, having to fight a human off, only to die next to it.

Stupid, cruel, violent humans...

Her current puppet is a lot like the first. Made with a deer skull, one with antlers again, and a ratty sheet she stole off a clothes line to help hold up grass and moss for it's body. Sticks and large bones make up it's skeleton, human-like hands made of the tied-together bones of a small animal. It's legs were taken from a nearly fresh deer corpse, still covered in flesh and fur, and big enough to hold the weight of her new creation.

It crouches at her side with her hand resting on it's head as they both stare at the town's welcome sign. She's been searching for this town for since she left Mary's, so she can help people like herself by getting rid of any lingering threats. Any  _pests_  still skittering around their lab.

_Welcome to Hawkins._

* * *

 

In a cabin way out in the woods but still close to town, El, Eleven, can feel it.

The presence of something.

Something like her, some _one_  like her, and behind that presence is the intent to kill.

* * *

 

Guys in white coats start turning up dead in the woods. Some of them deep,  _deep_ in the forest and others on the edge near the main road. Either way, once every week or two someone with Lab Credentials turns up dead. Mauled to death by something wild. Warnings are put out for coyotes and bears and everyone is told to stay out of the woods, but nobody really listens.

Of course they don't.

The adults do, sure, but kids of all ages still go adventuring or throw fire-side parties in the dark out there.

The chief of police tries. He really does. He tries  _so hard_  to convince himself it's just a coincidence. That maybe  _they_  don't care about Hawkins anymore and aren't still close to town, doing those fucked up science experiments. And then, after a few drinks, he thinks maybe someone (possibly one of the many kids they messed up for life) is out there killing off scientists from every lab in the country, and that they only just got to Hawkins.

_Nobody is here for his kid._

_Nobody is coming to take her away._

_Nobody is going to hurt her._

He thinks these things so often, playing them on repeat in his head everyday since the first body popped up, that he almost believes it. But only only solid proof, right in front of his face, will tell him he's right.

Six bodies end up in the morgue, still without even a hint as to who (or  _what_ ) killed them.

 

* * *

 

There are weird sounds coming from the woods. A synthetic-sounding roar that almost vibrates in the air. It gets everyone's attention, but only one person sets out to see what's making the noise.

When they come back they start raving about a monster. It has antlers and a skull for a face. It's freakishly tall and has huge hands with gnarly-looking claws. When it looked at him he thought he was going to  _die_ , but then it just made that noise again and left.

Everybody else thinks he's just having a bad trip. That he took something along with the joint everyone had been passing around earlier. Someone takes him home and the subject is dropped because nobody talks about it again.

Not a single person hears the noise again for the rest of the night.

Rumors about what it could have been run through Hawkins middle and high school like a wild fire the next day.

When word gets back to Billy, he almost says something. Almost warns people. Almost says:  _i_ _t might be a Wendigo, and it'll probably eat you if you find it._ But that would make him sound crazy, so he doesn't. Instead he spends a lot of time in class wondering if it might actually be a Wendigo, because wouldn't that be a really  _weird_  coincidence. It's only been a few months since he saw the one his new aunt was keeping as an outdoor pet, seeing one  _here_  of all places would be...

Yeah,  _weird_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh! Look!  
> I finally wrote more  
> And I changed the definite number of chapters back to (?)


End file.
